The Patriot's Fate Read Online Free Page A

stripe that ran the length of her hull. The rich smell of tar and oil based paint filled Chilton’s nostrils, giving the very air a scent of workmanlike efficiency. By the time the new captain came aboard, he intended having the entire ship shining like a new pin.
     
    Just as he was imagining the scene, Marshall, the lieutenant of marines, came up on deck. He was a good ten years older than Chilton, at least thirty-one, and carried himself with all the swagger that age, experience and access to a notable private income can give a man. Chilton watched him surreptitiously as he took the morning air to the windward side of the quarterdeck. Although apparently of the same status, Marshall was actually inferior to him in rank, and yet boldly shared the quarterdeck, and even took the coveted sheltered side, without the courtesy of reference or formal acknowledgement. It was a small matter, but Chilton was inclined to sensitivity, and Marshall’s domineering ways never failed to gall him. But then, he told himself, it was probably the only annoyance in his life at that moment, and was certainly not enough to dispel the feeling of goodwill that had been present in Scylla pretty much since Captain Jenkins and the two more senior lieutenants had left.
     
    The captain had been the first to go; Lieutenant Chilton supposed it should have been a sad occasion: a man who had spent his life at sea, leaving it for the last time. But Jenkins had been a miserable blighter, at least for the brief time that Chilton had been aboard, and probably for always, if the stories were correct. Gruff to the point of bloody-minded, Jenkins had bitten the heads off officers and men alike, giving scant encouragement or regard, and absolutely no credit for good work. But when presented with anything that fell even marginally below first rate, a new energy took hold of him, and whoever was responsible would be stamped down upon, almost literally, with glee and gusto until there could be no doubt that the wrong had been put firmly to right. Chilton supposed it was Jenkins’s condition that made him so; certainly the advanced stages of gout were not known to be pleasant. This failed to evoke any sympathy in the younger, healthier man, however. In fact, the occasional cry when the captain knocked a clumsy foot or bashed one of his gammy legs actually became the source of a good deal of silent satisfaction.
     
    Once clear of his presence, the ship had enjoyed three days of relative holiday before the lieutenants departed. She was moored in the harbour, with little for a tired and homesick crew to do but wait until the time when they would be paid off or transferred to another vessel. There was no official wedding garland hoisted, but that did not stop women and a good deal of illicit drink coming aboard, and for a brief period the scenes of revelry and indulgence were enough to totally distort a young man’s mind. At the same time, the first lieutenant was set on marking his promotion to commander, and regularly held receptions in the recently vacated great cabin, consuming much of the stores that Captain Jenkins would later send for. The second lieutenant was to follow the first as premier of the new brig they had been promised, and both celebrated their elevation with some of the finest meals, and prettiest young women, Chilton had ever seen.
     
    Then they left in a flurry of handshakes and goodwill, taking quite a number of the lower deck men with them, leaving only a few to be transferred to Ardent, the liner currently working up a few cables away, and Chilton to his current role of ship keeper. There was much talk of a new man coming; the regular victualling boat was often alive with stories of officers seen viewing the ship from ashore, or coming down post-chaise and immediately ordering cabin stores, or sending for possessions. But so far there had been no official notice, and they had not been bothered. Scylla was a fine ship: well built in a British